UCLA/Stoops

[azcat49]

Just a few last thought on NM.

I will not expend any energy to berate Stoops and staff. The season and how it unfolds will take care of that.

I actually am really rooting for Coach to pull it off even though it does not seem possible after witnessing this rewind of the same problems against UNM.

This is what I hope Stoops can get done for UCLA as I feel it is important:

1) Shut you players mouth to the media. NO need to give any opponent any more motivation. Lack of respect is the biggest one out there as they found out.

2) Educate your team on the type of opponent you will face. Not the X's and O's part of it but the mental part of it. BYU just handed the Bruns their worst loss since 1929.They are embarrased and will play very very hard Saturday in the Rose Bowl. Your team must be focused and energized.

3) Tui. I really have no answers for him and how to prepare him and I know Stoops HC career is tied to Wille but.... if you are so willing to burn the redshirt year of you future spread QB then don't be afraid to use him when your team is bogging down or after you Sr QB gives it up 4 times.

4) The defense really played well I thought. Sure they gave up 36 but UNM had four short fields to navigate. Keep their confidence high. they are a young group and could easily get their heads down. Don;t let them.

The next three games will determine if we are head coach hunting or not. We should win all three but as we have seen nothing comes easy for Stoops and company.

When we play each of these teams it is likely they will all have extra motivation or urgency. We must MATCH that. Only the head coach can instill that through building an environment where it is felt by each coach and player.

Good luck coach, I will be there at the Rose Bowl rooting for you and the team in what has become a really really important next few games for you.

[HiCat]

I have a hunch that the UCLA game is winnable. Should be a tough game no matter who wins it though.

[Merkin]

Good points, just a couple of concerns. Ferguson rushed for 158 yards, so I would not say the defense did a good job. The QB for UNM only missed 4 passes.

How good are UCLA's running backs? Looking at the box score they seem pretty pathetic.

[catgrad97]

azcat49, hat's off to you for taking the high road.

The next three are very winnable. However, I frankly think that if Tui and the Cats have a repeat of their last appearance in Pasadena, the team and Stoops are both in real trouble.

[azcat49]

Good points, just a couple of concerns. Ferguson rushed for 158 yards, so I would not say the defense did a good job. The QB for UNM only missed 4 passes.

How good are UCLA's running backs? Looking at the box score they seem pretty pathetic.


You know Merk I didn't see the UNM game so its hard for me to say anything really constructive.

But the UNM QB only had 87 yards passing I think so he didn't beat us. They had some success running the football and to me that is a sign of us not being physical enough.

Its the same problem we have had early in every season since Stoops got here.

If we can get the next two games we will be alright and this UNM game will be but a distant memory.

Hey second place may get a Rose Bowl bid with USC looking like a mortal lock for the BCS game (against Oklahoma)

[Merkin]

But the UNM QB only had 87 yards passing I think so he didn't beat us. They had some success running the football and to me that is a sign of us not being physical enough.


True, UNM won the line battles on both sides of the ball. Cats were very uninspired at all positions. Can't remember a single Arizona player really fired up. Maybe the one DE who had the sack.

[Jason Scheer]

Porterie had four uncompleted passes because all he threw were screen passes, as shown by the 87 total yards. The run defense was not good but either was the fact they were on the field a ton and the starting field position was bad because of the offensive turnovers.

[Drayhound]

I was at the UNM game and the fact that we gave the ball away five times and a lot of those coming in our end of the field. I give the defense credit for giving up only field goals for the most part. Tui blew this game for us and there is not arguing that. He needs to act like a senior quarterback and know what the hell he is doing out there. He needs to stop eyeballing Thomas every single time and realize that other people can catch too. Dykes also needs to realize that if the safeties are eight yards from the line of scrimmage and you are four wide. You need to take advantage and throw the ball deep and do those stupid little screen passes. At the end when they decided to do that they threw a td to Criner with ease. Pay attention to what is happeining in the game. Now BYU runs the same type of offense that we do, watch what they did right and try to do the same thing its that simple.

[SCCat]

This is just the type of game where good gameplanning on defense could really help our team. It seems like the type of situation where you could put eight in the box to make sure you stop the run and have enough guys up near the line so you don't have guys needing to overpersue as much and they can instead stick to their lanes a bit better. In conjunction with this, we could mix in some early blitzes from a couple different parts of the field to try and get in the UCLA QB's head a bit and try to create some early field position or even a turnover or two and cash those in for some early, quick points and really take the crowd out of it.

Of coarse we don't gameplan on defense or even seem to practice blitzing so it will be fun watching our base 4-3-4 bend and slowly give the UCLA quarterback confidence as the game goes along.

[Jason Scheer]

Arizona did load the box and blitz against New Mexico but it just did not work. One of the more frustrating things for the coaching staff.

[SCCat]

Arizona did load the box and blitz against New Mexico but it just did not work. One of the more frustrating things for the coaching staff.

Yeah. It feels like every time we do blitz we look like idiots. The execution is usually extremely poor (almost like we never practice it) and often the fundamental play itself is poorly contrived (almost like the coaches don't know what they're trying to do, much less how to actually do it).

[AZfootball18]

The Cats went into this game thinking they were going to easily win. Some of the comments made my certain cats just added fuel to New Mexico's fire. They wanted to win more. They came into this game fire up and ready to prove that last year wasn't a fluke.

In college football you can't take any team for granted. I really hope the Cats will learn from this and prepare better for UCLA next Saturday.

[azcat49]

Arizona did load the box and blitz against New Mexico but it just did not work. One of the more frustrating things for the coaching staff.

How do you load 8 in hte box yet don't stop the run? I mean its 5/6 on 8 at best.

UCLA has no run game so if they do run it we are deep trouble the rest of the year.